First Blood
by Schrodinger's Rabbit
Summary: What if Naruto had been born with Kushina's features? What if the entirety of the Kyuubi had been sealed within him? Hiruzen extends his hand in trust towards the Uchiha during the attack of the Kyuubi, Mikoto awakens the mangekyu after witnessing the death of Kushina and the existence of the Kyuubi jinchuriki is a tightly kept secret.


Naori of the Izanami, she was called, the best medic of her generation, now second to only Tsunade herself and here she was delivering a baby. Although she had been a bit apprehensive about doing something as simple as delivering a baby, she had soon found a much greater challenge in the form of keeping the redheaded mother(who had apparently been jinchuriki) from dying. Firstly she had to repair the internal bleeding and then with her remaining sharingan eye she cast a genjutsu powerful enough to fool the brain into thinking it still had a constant stream of foreign chakra in her system.

Holding the baby she nodded reassuringly at Kushina, the baby was healthy and hale although a bit on the quiet side. She handed him to Kushina first who calmly cradled the baby while Minato stood vigilantly at her side, she looked at the adorable baby in her arms and saw violet eyes looking back. "He has your eyes Kushina" he said adoringly. "And her hair too" commented Mikoto wryly.

The medic gently picked him up and gave his measurements under the watchful eyes of Uchiha Mikoto, Kushina's best friend and godmother to her son who had rushed over to her best friends side as soon as she heard about the attack. "He is healthy and there seem to be no additional complications, I've managed to delay the effects and staunch the bleeding but the withdrawal from the Kyuubi's chakra is along with your injuries, slowly but surely killing you. Honestly the only reason you managed to survive the extraction is due to your Uzumaki life force"

She put him down into the crib and looked at them with solemn eyes, "Even if you manage to reseal the beast into her it won't do her any good, her injuries are already far too severe for her to survive them" said Naori.

Minato looked despairingly at Kushina before schooling his features into that of hard resolve as he walked towards Naruto. "Give us a moment alone please" he asked. Naori nodded respectfully before walking down to the emergency room that was filled with various ninja and civilians during the crisis, Mikoto however lingered in front of the room.

Inside of the room Kushina and Minato furiously attempted to find another solution but despairingly reached the same conclusion, "He'll have to inherit my burden, a heavier burden than any child should have to bear" she said with a sorrowful expression on her face.

"I should go", Minato said whilst picking up Naruto, hating himself all the while. Every instinct he had as a father was screaming at him despairingly that he shouldn't do this, not to his son. But it was his duty a Hokage to do anything for the safety of the village. Kushina grabbed his hand in a firm grip, "I'm going with you" she said quietly, her tone as hard as steel.

Minato looked at her pleadingly, "I'm serious, I'm to be there by your side every step of the way, dattebane" she said in a tone that brooked no argument. "I should know better by now than to try to change your mind" he said sadly as she stood up with her hand firmly gripping his.

"You should know better than to think me a damsel in distress, I've come a long way since that incident with Kumo"

They quickly shunshined away, while Mikoto followed behind them, unwilling to abandon her best friend in her time of need.

* * *

Hiruzen stood, looking over the village from the roof of the Hokage's tower preparing himself for battle as he stood besides his old friend Danzo and discussed strategies. "I will along with three of my best ANBU, delay the beast with barrier ninjutsu until reinforcements arrive" he said with a solemn tone

"You will manage the deployment of troops until Minato seals the beast" said Hiruzen firmly. Danzo looked at his old comrade in arms and said "It will be difficult maintaining the barrier, you won't be able to hold the beast for very long." "I know but if there is one thing you can always count on with Minato it's in his speed." Said Hiruzen with a hint of trepidation in his voice. "He will be there in time, in the meanwhile you will organize a force of Yamanaka, Nara and Uchiha shinobi to delay the beast from destroying the barrier"

"You should order the Uchiha Police Force to guard the civilians and keep them in the rear" Danzo said belligerently. Hiruzen turned to Danzo "They can use their Sharingan to suppress the Nine-Tails, they are too valuable to be kept in the rear." He replied in a tone brooking no argument. "The village may very well be destroyed without them. You will guard the civilians, order the rest of the ANBU and the security units as you wish, Danzo!" he shouted while donning the last of his armour. "Very well, but it will be on your head, Hiruzen"

"ANBU Barrier Team, We're heading out" Barked Hiruzen before taking off into the direction of the massive tailed beast, his ANBU Team diligently following behind him. As they ran towards the Kyuubi they saw just how widespread the damage the tailed beast had caused and the heart-wrenching sight of the corpses of women, children and men, ninja or civilian the beast had spared no one, it had indiscriminately killed everything in its path.

Hiruzen, hurriedly summoned Enma and shunshined with the barrier teamt towards the site of the attack, "Barrier Formation, position yourselves in the cardinal directions as close to beast as you can possibly get, we're going with a Four Red Yang Formation, I'll take the south, Dog you'll take north, Rabbit you'll take west and Raccoon will take the east.

They took their positions and held their arms in the seal of the ram, erecting a large purple barrier in front of their positions. A drop of sweat ran down Hiruzen's forehead, since this was a Kage level technique he had to compensate for the weaker links in the chain. The Beast rampaged inside, slamming it's tails against the barrier. Hiruzen flinched but remained steadfast and the barrier held.

After holding the barrier for what seemed like hours, he finally saw out of the corner of his eyes three squads of consisting of Yamanaka, Nara and Uchiha clansmen approaching his position. "I'm using a Yang Barrier, it will prevent any physical techniques from entering but Yin techniques such as genjutsu, Mind/Body Disturbance or shadow manipulation won't be blocked." He yelled at them.

"Yamanaka's take position, use the Mind/Body Disturbance Jutsu to halt it's movement and bring it's gaze here!" he shouted, as he heard dozens of cries of 'Shinranshin no Jutsu' he turned his attention towards the Nara present, "The Yamanaka will create the opening, when it's facing us use my shadow as a medium and hold it's tails down with your Shadow Sewing Jutsu!" As soon as he heard the synchronized shout of 'Kage Nui no Jutsu' he at last turned his eyes towards the Uchiha

"Well don't just stand there, ensnare the damn thing in as many layers of genjutsu as you possibly can. Use only the sharingan since other genjutsu will almost certainly be useless against it." He exclaimed commandingly, as the pressure on the barrier relented he turned back to face the beast that was disoriented from dozens of mental disturbance techniques and tied down by hundreds of shadowy tendrils and as he watched the beast visibly calm down as genjutsu upon genjutsu were cast upon it.

* * *

The masked man stood on a nearby cliff looking over the site of the battle sneering down on those who would attempt to defy his plans, he saw the Third run towards the beast and trap it in a barrier. Honestly, he would have just killed him then but there were too many witnesses and he kind of wanted to see how this would play out, it was after all much too entertaining to have it end that quickly.

As he watched reinforcements arrive his lip twitched in a smile, so amusing to see these lesser Uchiha try to control his beast. He turned his attention to the Yamanaka who were disorienting the beast with various mental disturbance jutsu and when the beast turned towards them, hundreds of shadowy tendrils sprang up to sew it's tails to the ground.

The Uchiha then stepped in front of the beast looking into it's eyes as they began to cast layer after layer of genjutsu at it. As the beast became more and more docile he felt a twinge of anger towards those Uchiha for daring to overpower his superior genjutsu with quantity instead of quality. Then suddenly an idea popped into his head, he shifted through space into a shadow behind the squads and looked into the eyes of the beast, reinforcing his underlying genjutsu.

* * *

Sarutobi was breathing more easily now, the beast had been subdued and now he only had to hold the barrier until Minato got here and sealed it, which was only a matter of time. He looked with pride at his comrades who with the Will of Fire had joined in subduing the beast, they were all smiling at their accomplishment until suddenly their faces twisted into expressions of horrors and he looked back at the beast. It's eyes were clearing, it was ripping through the shadows as if they were cobwebs and as it opened it's maw, motes of chakra began to gather into a Bijudama.

"Retreat, I don't know if I can hold it!" he shouted at the squads as he began to condense the area of the barrier in front of the Bijudama in the hopes of stopping it or at least deflecting it and then the fox swallowed it(?), before unleashing an insane amount of energy at the barrier. Sweat drenched his face as he struggled to uphold the barrier in the face of overwhelming power, he saw a spiderweb of cracks spreading through the point of impact as struggled to hold it while the Bijudama dissipated and then as the barrier fell, before he could collapse from chakra exhaustion he quickly ran under the fox, telling Enma to extend as far and as fast as he could.

As Enma extended, caught and threw the kyuubi out of the village and into the nearby mountain valleys he collapsed wearily into the ground.

* * *

Minato and Kushina were running to the barrier from the east when they suddenly saw it collapse, they increased their pace and watched worriedly as the kyuubi was physically thrown from the village into the valleys in the mountains nearby Konoha. They immediately changed course and headed towards the spot where it had landed. As they approached it Kushina extended her hands towards the beast and a mass of chains flowed from them as she shouted "'Chakra Chains Barrier'" and five chains burst from her back and into the ground criss-crossing over their location, preventing interference and holding down Kurama.

Minato tried for the last time to find alternative methods but he could see no other way. "I'm going to use an 'Eight Trigrams: Dead Demon Consuming Seal' to seal him into Naruto, It's the only seal powerful enough to seal the beast." he said while summoning the ritual altar. Kushina looked sadly at him "With what little chakra I have left it's all I can do to hold it down, I'm dying Minato." she said, cradling Naruto in her arms, "If I were allowed one regret its that I won't be able to see him grow up"

As his hands ran through the seals(SnakeBoarRamRabbitDogRatBirdHorseSnake), he said "Preserve your chakra as best you can, I'll place it into the seal. It will only be a moment but you'll be able to see him when he grows up and help in his time of need if he ever has trouble controlling the fox." Then he clapped his hands as finished the jutsu and the visage of the Shinigami appeared behind him. A ghostly hand went through his stomach and extended to grasp the very essence of the kyuubi itself and another extended itself to grasp what little remained of Kushina's chakra.

The hand that grasped Kushina's chakra had faced almost no resistance as it pulled it out of her but Minato could hardly bring himself to do it, as he looked into the eyes of his child he found the resolve to pull out the last vestiges of life from Kushina. As the barrrier collapsedhe walked towards the altar gently placing Naruto down on it before taking from the Shinigami's hand the glowing fire of Kushina's chakra and then focused all his willpower to the task of pulling out the essence of the beast. Suddenly he saw someone's shadow behind him and a twinge of killing intent, but just as quickly as it had appeared it disappeared.

Free of distraction he once again turned his attention towards the beast that was fiercely struggling against the hand of the Shinigami and knew that if this continued he would have weaken it by severing it's chakra and sealing one half(Yin) into himself and another half(Yang) into his son. As soon as the Shinigami raised his blade the beast stopped struggling as if sensing it's own demise and collapsed limply into the ground, with the resistance lessened he pulled the entirety of the beast and sealed it into his son. With his left hand he placed Kushina's chakra into the seal in the form of a safeguard, at the unraveling point of the seal.

With a few handseals he summoned Geratora and with a quick pulse of chakra from his rapidly dwindling supply he imprinted the key to the seal onto his belly and told him to safeguard it.

With his last breath he placed into the seal alongside Kushina's some of his own chakra to act as an additional safeguard before the Shinigami took his soul and the life faded from his eyes.

* * *

Mikoto had been discreetly following them since they left hospital, she had been unable to match Minato and Kushina's speed but managed to keep them in her sights as they reached the landing site of the kyuubi and Kushina erected a barrier. With sadness in her heart, knowing the barrier would be impossible penetrate she quickly hid in the nearest grove of trees before activating her sharingan and obscuring her chakra signature.

She watched helplessly frozen in horror as the barrier collapsed and her best friend fell lifeless to the ground, her eyes ached and filled with tears and as she stood up to run towards them chakra flowed into her eyes against her conscious will, the ache became a burn of searing agony and her turned to tears of blood. As she watched him turn towards the beast a man suddenly appeared behind his hand rising up to strike down everything Kushina had sacrificed herself her left eye suddenly stopped burning andthat wretched hand burst into black flames.

The man disappeared and as she ran towards Minato she saw that him struggling to seal the fox and she looked into the eyes of the fox preparing to cast her strongest genjutsu, to support Minato but the moment their eyes met her right eye stopped burning and the fox collapsed limply into the ground.

Mikoto saw the relief reflected on Minato's face as he turned towards his son sealing the beast in him and placed Kushina's chakra into the seal, he then determinedly summoned a strangely shaped frog and imprinted some sort of seal design on it before it disappeared.

She then saw him lift his hand and place the last vestiges of his chakra into seal as well before the last of his life faded from his eyes.

She approached the altar where the boy was crying his eyes out and gently scooped him up into her arms and gently cradled him but he wouldn't stop crying. She looked at him and saw that his features had changed, three whisker marks now adorning his face. She then took off in a sprint towards the Uchiha clan compound, the only haven she could be sure of during such a disaster.

* * *

XxxThe masked man warped through space and stepped onto the mountaintop and looked down on the kyuubi in the valley below him. As two tiny figures approached it he raised his eyebrows in amusement, which soon turned into a frown when he recognized them and a high level chain barrier enclosed the area surrounding them, thus preventing his entry.

As he waited for some sort of opportunity to disrupt the sealing that was now taking place in the barrier the chain barrier suddenly faded away, the Fourth was placing the baby onto the altar and as he turned towards the beast he knew he had his opening. Stepping through space he appeared behind him but no sooner had he raised his hand to strike him down when it burst into the black flames of Amaterasu.

Cursing violently he fled, warping through space and into one of his disposable hideouts. He cut off his hand without hesitation before the flame could spread to the rest of his body and warped to the medical facilities of his sanctuary, to hurriedly treat the arm.

First they had betrayed him to the Senju dogs and now they cost him his hand, his old clan was quickly becoming quite the nuisance.

* * *

_Three days later_

Hiruzen sighed tiredly, this was going to be a difficult task he thought as he stepped into the household of the Uchiha head of clan. Oh it wasn't going to be a physically difficult task he knew but rather it would be difficult because separating a child from a woman who was determined to take a maternal position in the boys life.

As he sat down at the table wearing the formal robes of the office he had recently been reinstated to, he thought carefully on the words he would use in the upcoming verbal spar. "Would you like some tea Hokage-sama?" The house maid asked in a subservient manner. "Ah, yes please that would be much appreciated." He said in a jovial tone that would hopefully invoke a bit of trust among those present, a somewhat optimistic hope considering the political affiliations of their respective clans but it couldn't hurt.

He looked over the table at the seemingly perfect family, in front of him sat Fugaku and Mikoto side by side with Itachi stoically sitting at the right side of the table at his fathers side, an appropriate seating arrangement seeing as how he was the heir. "Firstly, I just wanted to thank you and your clan for their assistance in the recent crisis. Without the help of your clansmen many more shinobi would certainly have perished." He pontificated while looking pointedly at one of the infants Mikoto was holding.

"Do you have some reason for calling this meeting Hokage-sama?" Asked Mikoto gently but with a hint of steel in her eyes. "Yes of course he does, this must be important business indeed, for him to call for a meeting the head of the Uchiha clan" said Fugaku with a note of scepticism entering his voice regarding just how important that business could be.

"Well, yes I do admit that I have a greater motive for coming here than just to acknowledge the great service your clan provided for the village in our greatest time of need" Hiruzen replied while sipping on his tea, the taste Gyokuro filled his mouth. He supposed he shouldn't have expected anything but the best from one of Konoha's richest clans. "I have come to talk to you about the placement of a certain orphan you seem to have taken into your home."

"I'm his godmother, not some stranger. It's perfectly within my rights to see to it that he gets the care he needs." Replied Mikoto tersely, with an expertly blank face giving away nothing. "Yes well in any other situation I would agree with you but you know why the other clans would never stand for it" He said putting saucer down on the table.

Fugaku looked at his maid and son, "Itachi, Iriko. Leave us, you do not have the clearance level required for this discussion" he said sternly and as they left he looked back at the Hokage with a raised eyebrow. "You know very well that the clans would never stand for you having the immense political advantage of raising a jinchuriki. Traditionally they are only connected to the family of a Kage, both in Konoha and in the other villages."

"We both know that a large part of the reason Minato was elected in the first place was because of his relationship with Kushina, otherwise Orochimaru would have been favoured for the seat by the clan council." He elaborated, "In any other situation this would acceptable but an official adoption into any clan, not to mention the head family of a clan is simply impossible. My daughter could be a politically correct choice but sadly she has no interest in being a parent, so it will have to be a civilian family or an orphanage"He said in a resigned tone. The political situation in Konoha was rather volatile at the moment and anything else might result in civil war.

The couple looked each other in the eye and seemed to come to a conclusion. "Yes, we understand perfectly Hokage-sama, of course you have to avoid the appearance of favouritism toward any one clan but we both know that no civilian family will adopt him. We do however propose an alternate solution which should serve both of our purposes." Mikoto said with a hint of disappointment in her tone.

"Oh, really? Please do elaborate." The ageing leader replied reservedly.

* * *

_The week after_

Fugaku stood proudly at the podium in the cemetery where a wake for the victims of the kyuubi was being held. He was only one of many who were giving a speech this fateful night but what he was about to say would win his clan the goodwill of the villagers forever.

"This has been a great tragedy and it has left many dead in its wake and we stand here in our sorrow, husbands grieving the loss of their wives, widows donning their veils and children who are now orphans grieving the loss of their parents."

"I know that those lives can never be replaced, I also lost many of my dearest friends that fateful night and they now lie resting with the other heroes of this village in the Pure World."

"However we must not forget to look to the future and the orphaned children must no be forgotten in our grief, which is why I have opened a new orphanage on the behalf of my clan just outside of our Clan Compound where we can always watch over them."

As he delivered his speech, Mikoto walked sadly towards the door of the new orphanage with Naruto in her hands. She stepped inside where a few of the civilian members of the clan were taking up their new positions, she quickly ascended the stairs and walked down the hallway towards the office of the new matron.

"Hello Naori, how have you been? I haven't seen you since that night" she asked quietly while gently rocking the baby in her arms. "I've had better days I suppose, honestly what is this about? Giving me a position as an orphanage matron out of nowhere?"

"Well you've always been grumbling about retiring haven't you? I thought this might serve well as a break from the stress of the emergency room." She replied teasingly, a smirk on her lips. "A break you say? Pwah, a break would be a nice little summer home by the coast where I could live out the rest of my days in peace. Instead I have to care for a herd of little toddlers, children and shudder preteens."

"Don't be so dramatic, the position is mostly for show and you can relegate most of the duties to the assistants and you'll have a secretary to take care of most of the paperwork. Your only real duty will be to guard this child." She said while stroking his red hair gently.

"And what qualification does an old woman like me have to guard any child, least of all a jinchuriki?" she asked in a serious tone. Mikoto turned her head towards her aunt and in her eyes lay a trefoil shaped mangekyo sharingan.

"I have read the tablet in our most ancient of meeting places, as only those with these cursed eyes can. I know exactly what your title means 'Naori of the Izanami' and although Amaterasu is beyond your reach now you still have enough skill with genjutsu to handle most ninja and for those beyond the reach of your more mundane genjutsu there is always Tsukuyomi"

"Do not be so hasty to activate those new eyes of yours, merely having them activated will still slowly but surely darken the light of your world. The more chakra you feed to you mangekyo, the greater the darkening of your sight will be." She said sadly.

"Very well I will accept this duty."

Mikoto kissed his forehead, "Goodbye for now Naruto, I will always watch over you. I hope you and Sasuke will be friends one day."

* * *

Recap

So some glaring differences to that of canon, that I will address now. Firstly being that Naruto now has crimson hair and violet eyes like his mother, he also has the entirety of Kurama sealed into him because the entire splitting Kurama in half thing was just one the dumber plot devices I've ever seen. Secondly, Hiruzen never ordered the Uchiha to the rear and instead used them to help subdue the beast if only temporarily which along with the opening of a new orphanage results in them gaining a large amount of public approval.

Also Mikoto got her mangekyo and Tobi lost an arm to it.

* * *

_Authors Note:_

Naori is basically the one who invented Izanami to reprimand Izanagi users, seeing as how her name means recovery I thought it was fitting to make her a medic. Since Izanami is one of the ultimate expressions of genjutsu and she invented it she kind of had to be an accomplished genjutsu mistress. She is blind in her left eye from her use of Izanami and thus can't use Amaterasu.

When Izanagi washed his eyes, the sun goddess Amaterasu burst from his left eye and the moon goddess Tsukuyomi burst from his right eye. A bit of trivia for you guys to explain my reasoning in regards to the reason she can't use Amaterasu.


End file.
